


Taco Tuesday (You're Such A Cliché)

by bunjamin



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Blood, Did I Mention Murder, Hair Dyeing, Josh Dun is a Good Friend, Late Night Conversations, Lots of it, M/M, Murder, Psychological Trauma, Serial Killers, Sometimes cute, Taco Bell, This has no actual plot, Tyler Joseph is Weird, because tacos are good, debby ryan has all the braincells, fun putting these tags together, honestly a trigger warning for the entire series, oof mama, she's too cool, sometimes terrifying, these tags are a rollercoaster
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-03-20 10:36:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18990973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunjamin/pseuds/bunjamin
Summary: Working at Taco Bell pays the rent. And, as Josh has learned, allows you to meet some very interesting people.





	1. Casting Call

“Shit, did you hear they’ve even given him a name?”

Debby put her phone away, her mouth drawn in a thin line. Unwanted news - that's what subscribing to a blog on the local serial killer does to you.

“I thought that only happened in cheesy horror movies.” Josh answered with a strained smile. They stood outside the back of a Taco Bell, her smoking, him wondering, watching the sky’s dying lights, going from pale blue to pink in fits of schizophrenia. Every night had begun to feel like the quiet before a storm - you never knew who, when, where.

If it was going to be you, or your loved ones. Maybe somebody you’ve never met before. Their death would make you glad. At least you’re safe for another couple of weeks. He cleared his throat and Debby shuddered, as if she too, had drifted off sometime after asking her question. “You were saying some-.”

“Blurryface. Not even that scary. Just… unsettling.”

Josh’s remark died in his throat. Just as unsettling as the bodies he left behind - Debby didn’t see it, and nobody else did, not as clearly as he could. Each death was a clue, this killer was weaving a narrative against the backdrop of a useless, forgotten town. A scene, and they were the props, fit to be played with and discarded, altered if need be.

“He’s a freak.” he said. He was. Was Josh was a freak for trying to understand? Likely. “Thought about taking some self-defense classes?” Debby smiled through a cloud of smoke, just as pretty as when they had first met, yet so much farther away than then. She went for the inside of her jacket.

Josh raised his hand, ready to turn down the offer of a cigarette - he didn’t smoke, never could stand it - but his fingers recoiled when she pulled out the switchblade. “Woah. You can use that?”

Debby did a couple of demonstrative tricks, grinning brightly with the cigarette at the corner of her mouth. “I’m safe. It’s not me I’m worrying about.” Her tone grew more serious. “You should think about self-defense classes too, you know? Not like he’s the kind of creep that only targets women. You’re fair game, to him.”

He forced a smile and wiped his nose. Autumn colds had been knocking on his door for a long time now, and he’d made the mistake of letting one get in. She might’ve mistook it for nervousness, because her expression softened. Josh didn’t want reassurance. “I’ll… look into those. I have a busy schedule.” Lie. If his interpretation of the story so far was right, he wasn't the next step the killer was looking for.

“Must be hard, being a college dropout.”

Paying bills? Yeah, it was hard. College hadn't been for him - disappointing his parents? That was right up his alley, and he was damn good at it.

“Ouch. I’m gonna tell your manager that you’re being verbally and emotionally abusive.” he replied instead, realizing he'd been sulking.

“I’m gonna tell your manager that you eat leftover taco shells at the end of the night.”

“...They’re good.”

“You sicko.” she said and they both fell silent. Debby checked her phone. Josh remembered when her lock-screen wallpaper used to be a picture of the two of them. Now it was a picture from the last festival she’d been to. The digital clock showed it was past six, and Jenna should’ve already been there to pick her up and drive her to campus. Bless her and her license, Josh thought, but already in his mind worst case scenarios were beginning to form.

It had been two weeks since the last body was found. Another one would surface soon, if the pattern of the last couple of deaths would be followed. Josh assumed the killer was quite fond of the orderly chaos he had created, the way the city seemed to gathered in on itself each time two weeks had passed, waiting, fearing…

A beige car pulled up in the small street their back exit led to, the blonde head of Jenna peeking out of the driver’s window. As bubbly and happy as usual - nice to see some things never changed, as impending doom stalked the city in the form of a murderer, and filled the sky in the form of dusk. Debby put out her cigarette against the concrete wall and stuffed it in her pocket - he cringed. It had left a dot of ash. “Take care.” he said, hushed. Jenna's eyes were on him.

She had been there for the get together, for the good times, bad times, and for the break-up. Awkward.

“And you.” she returned, just as quietly. Her mood shifted the moment she headed for the car, mimicking the other woman's confident smile, like there was nothing wrong with the world. Josh wondered what Jenna said, her eyes fixed on him, when Debby shut the car door.

He waved them goodbye as the car backed up out of the side street. Alone, he headed back inside.

 

Right about now, it would be a great time for the city to repair the street lights in the area. One of them was half-shining down the street, insignificant this far away - Josh peered through the glass windows fronting th store at the otherwise dark mass surrounding the Taco Bell and shuddered. He wasn't scared of the dark. No way.

Closing time used to be fun. Him and Debby had the shift, free to fuck around and do whatever as long as they didn't break anything. Okay, one time they broke one table, Debby took the fall for it because Josh was steps away from getting fired. But they were good kids.

_Their manager hated them, but they were good kids._

“Go home earlier. Get Jenna to pick you up, seriously. I can close up on my own, nobody shows up here after six anyway.”

The move he had pulled was perfectly and utterly against the rules. For Debby. She hadn't wanted to cooperate at first, but for the first time in a while, him and Jenna agreed on something. Hell, they even worked together to achieve that something.

She's safe for now. Josh was about to kill the lights and make a break for the door to escape this hellish situation when something slammed against the front window and he screamed. If asked about it later, of course, he had let out a terrifying and manly “battle-cry”, ready to defend himself.

His feet betrayed him and he fell to the floor he'd just finished mopping, gross sanitizer gathering on his palms as he crawled on all fours. Finally finding the cover of hiding under a table, he watched and waited for the source of the sound to reveal itself.

_Squee… squeeeee…_

Somebody was dragging their hands against the glass. He could just about make out the hand print, slowly moving towards the doors. This was how he died, then. The doors we're still unlocked. He felt the weight of the store keys in his pocket.

Racing against the seemingly lazy movements of whoever was outside, Josh was about to crawl back up, make one hell of a run for the doors and lock them, sound the alarm, call the police, pray, cry, call Debby, cry some more - but he slipped the second he tried to push himself up and the next thing he saw was nothing. A brief blurr of reality and all air left his lungs.

The doors opened with a friendly click.

“'Scuse me? Are you guys still open?”

His sight began to clear, soon to be overshadowed by a figure looming above, dressed in a dark hoodie and black pants. He couldn't make out the details of his face. He sounded friendly.

Josh slurred, tongue heavy.

“I'll take that as a yes.” the figure said, clearly pleased. He moved away, always somewhere nearby, but always out of Josh's limited field of vision. Sometimes a rim of the hood that was pulled over the stranger's head would be close enough to see, making his muscles seize up and his blood freeze

Death was surely taking its time.

“Say, it's still Tuesday, right?”

“Yea-” he managed to say eventually, gathering his composure. His head was pounding.

“So it's still three tacos for ninety nine cents, right?” The voice was moving closer.

The store's closed. That's what he should've said. He should've told the stranger to get out, or he'd call the police. Better yet, tell them he'd already sounded a silent alarm and the police were right around the corner.

“Ninety nine cents. Three tacos. Yes.”

Words that save your life are supposed to be deep, with a meaning you can think back on years later, ponder the universe, something like that. Of course , you never know what words are going to save your life, and in Josh's case, you'd find yourself wondering if those words were actually what doomed you in the first place.

“Splendid. Make me some tacos. Or else.” After a pause, the stranger laughed. “Joking, but come on man, I'm famished. Been a long day.”

Josh gathered up his returning strength to sit up, cold and numb on the floor, nursing a killer headache. His heart was beating erratically in his chest. Pathetically and still on all fours, he crawled to the counter, holding on to it for dear life and using it to help himself up.

“How many…?”

“Well, I have seven dollars, so do the math yourself.”

Even on a good day, Josh was not the brightest mathematician in the room. His brain jumbled and let out a figurative shrug.

“That's twenty one.” the stranger said, sounding slightly concerned, like Josh's brain had taken some serious damage after the fall, and like he actually cared. Oddly flattering. They arrived by his side next to the counter. About the same height, hood pulled low on their face to hide their eyes. Nice lips.

Way to go, Joshua.

“I dropped out of college.”

Way to go again, Joshua. The nice lips of the stranger curled into a nice smile, only a fraction of perfect white teeth showing when they laughed. He scrambled over the counter before they had anything to add, unnerved by the closeness, the anonymity of the figure. He was so, so screwed, wasn't he?

It's not every day a hooded figure walks into your work place at closing time, demanding you make them twenty one tacos, while still being a sane, well-meaning citizen that will not carve your heart out.

“So, you got a name, taco boy?” the figure asked, propping his forearms on the top of the display booth of nicely arranged ingredients. It looked almost comical, like the already too big hoodie was beginning to swallow him up completely. It did not warm Josh's heart.

Lie. He wanted to lie so bad. His uniform did have his name pinned to his chest, so it wasn't as if the figure couldn't find out for themselves. Introducing himself on his own accord, however, felt like the death sentence of his dignity. He swallowed the lump in his throat. “Joshua.”

They hummed. He shuddered. “Jishwa, Jishwa, Jishwa…” they repeated, mouth making exaggerated movement as if they were chewing down the name, getting used to it. An odd and blatant mispronouncing. A nickname. Holy hell, they'd given him a nickname.

His hands have never shaken so badly while making a taco. In silence, he finished the first one, placing it in the stranger's expectant outstretched palm. He heard them start eating it right away. So, they weren’t joking about being famished.

“So…”

“So?” they said through a mouthful.

“Nothing.”

They were a fast eater, Josh observed nervously, because by the time he was done with the second one, another palm was waiting for it. He watched as they licked sauce off the fingers of their other palm.

Huh.

“Don't stare at customers, Jishwa, it's rude.” the stranger scolded him. He didn't dare look at them anymore. Just make the damn tacos, hurry, hurry and you might live.

After more heavy silence, his heartbeat drumming in his ears, the stranger spoke up again. “Crap, I got sauce on my hoodie.”

Josh risked a look up when he heard fabric shift. Without the hood over his eyes, the other was much less threatening. Wild, dark brown and short hair, looking like he'd decided to cut it himself and didn't do that bad of a job. Josh had tried that once - terrible idea that had led him to the discovery that he could pull off beanies.

His eyes seemed to be pulling in the light, irises like two bottomless pits, wandering and fixing on points and objects beyond Josh’s head. Thankfully - he didn’t think he could stand having those vats of despair pinning him down. Something about his beauty was terrifying and unhinged. Josh found him strangely cat-like. He’d always been more of a dog person.

“Staring. Again. If you’re going to do it, then I’m going to do it too. Just a heads-up.” the stranger sounded pleased, like he had finally found some loophole around his own rule of not staring. Josh brought his gaze down before he could find himself holding the other’s. With the roles reversed, he felt trapped, suffocating.

A third taco was ready. He handed it over, looking at his hands intently. The stranger didn’t begin eating right away, like he’d done before. Fuck.

“You have beautiful hair. So bright. So yellow. You’re unique.”

Josh mouthed a ‘thank you’. He didn’t understand anymore, whether he’s in danger, or just paranoid, if Debby’s words had struck a chord in him and turned him into a scared mess, assuming everyone he saw was a psychopathic murderer. The stranger tsked. “This is, no offense, horrible customer service.” If he hadn’t been the one currently experiencing a real-life nightmare, maybe Josh would’ve thought the same. “We’ve clearly gotten off on the wrong foot. Call me Tyler.”

“Okay.” What he meant? Hell no. His tone didn’t do wonders at hiding it, but this Tyler didn’t seem to notice or mind.

“I’m a chill guy. And I really like tacos.”

“No shit.”

Tyler beamed like he’d been given the nicest compliment in ages. His smile was undeniably cute, and Josh was insane for thinking about it. “See? You’ve got a bit of bite in you. That’s what I like. And you make killer tacos, did anyone ever tell you that?”

Josh didn’t answer. At some point, the other asked him to pack the rest up, declared he was full. He moved away from the counter, poking around the empty space like a child set free in a playground. Josh caught him humming again to himself - he had a pretty voice. Every so often, Tyler would pop some random question. He asked Josh what his favorite color was, what music he listened to, what his dream job would be.

“Musician.” he answered. The other seemed startled but delighted, turning to Josh with a grin. “I play drums. Played. I had to sell them, for, uh, rent.” he clarified. Not like he could play drums in an apartment building filled with old people. He wouldn’t hear the end of it. Last time he had checked, he was by far the youngest resident.

It didn’t use to be like that, when him and Debby were ‘living together, but not officially’, when she’d hang around for days at his house, have most of her stuff there. She was a solid four years younger. Used to call him ‘one of the senior residents’ to mess with him. It was nice. Less lonely.

Missing her wasn’t the goal right now.

“Just keep on dreaming, Jishwa.”

“That’s a silly thing to say.”

“Yeah.”

Just keep on dreaming, Jishwa.

Tyler answered, in turn, any question he thought to ask. Did you have any childhood pets? (No.) Are you in college? (Sometimes.) How many tacos can you eat in one sitting? (You’re asking like you haven’t just seen it.) Josh slowly grew more confident, like maybe the guy wasn’t such a threat. Just kind of a weirdo.

“Do people hang out with you?” he asked eventually, packing up the final taco in one of their take-out bags. Riffling through his pockets, Tyler produced 6.50 dollars, but Josh didn’t mind the missing change, gave him the food nevertheless.

“Not really.” He didn’t seem bothered by his answer. “Binge eating tacos and slamming into store-fronts doesn’t make you hella popular, does it?”

It doesn’t. “I dunno.”

By the end of it all, he truly didn’t know anymore. Who Tyler really was, whether he should keep his guard up. Whether he should tell anybody about what had happened. ‘Some guy came in after closing time, I made him twenty one tacos out of pure fear for my life.’ Sounded like delirious bullshit. Debby would get concerned and demand to stay and finish their shift together again, and he couldn’t risk putting her in danger like that.

He wasn’t the next target of the killer, he tried reassuring himself, it wasn’t what the pattern suggested. The narrative demanded another role, one Josh wasn’t fit to play. The casting call had gone out long ago, for everybody in the city, but he was yet to get a callback. When? Where? How? He could only guess.

Tyler wasn’t the killer. He’d been telling himself that all night. By the end he began to believe it.

They stepped out of the Taco Bell together, Tyler clutching his take-out bag and watching Josh’s back as he locked the place up, one hour later than he should’ve. The street light farther down the street blinked at them, like it, too, was confused. Josh shuddered and hugged his shoulders when he was done with the keys. Should’ve brought a jacket. He sneezed and Tyler gave him a sympathetic smile.

“Momma used to make me chicken noodle soup. Does wonders for colds. Store-bought’s fine, that’s what she always got me, too.”

Josh nodded slowly. The street was very dark. Only an outline of a human was talking to him now. No matter how well his eyes slowly adjusted to the night, Tyler stayed an incoherent patch of darkness. “Thanks, man.”

“See you around? Next Tuesday.”

“Yeah.” he agreed absently. “Wait, what? Next Tuesday?”

Tyler hummed. “It’s our thing now. Taco Tuesday… _Night_.”

This was insane. They were both insane. “Want a taco?” the other added. Josh could hear the smile on his nice lips. He reached out wordlessly into the bag, took one. Him and Tyler regarded each other silently for a while. He still couldn’t see him - he wondered what Tyler could see.

They parted without exchanging another word.

 

Twin Peak’s “Making Breakfast” was a great guilty pleasure song. He’d set it as a ringtone a while back, and it had grown on him fast. It filled the room at one in the morning. Head buried against the pillow, he shifted reluctantly, feeling blindly for his phone in the dark. Finally - he found it. The screen was bright, way too bright. He squinted and slammed the phone against the mattress, blinking to clear his eyes. His head was swimming.

The phone had stopped ringing by the time he was ready to subject himself to more incredible amounts of suffering. He checked to see who the fuck had the audacity to call him his late on a Tuesday night - two missed calls from Debby.

She picked up the second he called back.

_Thank God._

“Thank God what?” he asked, filled with adrenaline. As if he hadn’t guessed already.

_They found another body. Said he was a twenty something year-old._

“When?”

_Couple of minutes ago. Apparently he died sometime after ten, and I thought… Dunno with you finishing at nine or something…_

“I’m fine.”

_It’s was close._

“Close? That’s at least one hour after I got home. Chill out.” Bullshit. Fifteen minutes, give or take, more accurately.

_I mean close to… Taco Bell._

Josh exhaled. “Fuck.”

_Yeah, fuck._

He didn’t want to know anything else. They talked on the phone about anything else, like they used to when they were still together. Her family, his family, books, bands, and all the other things they never talked about anymore, but needed to fill the silence with. Except this time around there were a lot less ‘miss you’s, and a lot more ‘stay safe’s.

One last thing had Debby told him about the last victim.

He had bright, yellow hair.


	2. Two Terriers Playing Tug Of War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I'll be okay tomorrow."
> 
> "You better be, Dun."

When he woke up in the cold light of dawn, his arm had marks from where he'd pinched himself to stay awake. It worked, until about… Josh had begun to lose track of time by then. He checked the call log to see Debby had hung up at 4:48 AM. Like the good old days. Morning classes had probably been hell for her, having to be up and half-working at seven.

He, on the other hand, had no real purpose until this afternoon. Work. Thinking about it did him no good right now. His phone was almost dead, but he couldn't help keeping it in his hand, checking the time, checking for texts.

The blog Debby had subscribed to, the one on the serial killer, had a couple of thousands of followers. Now it had one more. He’d given some bullshit website his email address because he was that scared.

Something about last night nagged him. To be fair, there were many things about last night he should be worried about. He went in the bathroom thinking of a shower, just wanted to scrub off the dread, but ended up staring at himself in the mirror. It had nothing to do with vanity.

_Yellow… hair…_

He weaved his fingers through the puffs of electric yellow and grit his teeth. It’d been this way ever since he dropped out of college. His predictions, his understanding of this killer. It used to work. Not anymore. Maybe a change of heart occurred. How?

The trail was cold, he was lost and map-less like the rest.

His face in the mirror was unpleasant to look at. Bags under his eyes, red around them. He'd cried over the phone, told Debby he was scared shitless. She told him everything would be fine, that they'd catch the monster soon, or she'll put their head through the Taco Bell's back wall herself. Classic. He wished he still had her fake confidence.

He cut his shower short when he heard the doorbell ring., hurrying out and wrestling boxers and a t-shirt over himself with his skin still damp and pleasantly warm. The t-shirt his college had given to him as a welcome gift, to try and rile up his loyalty or something. It was a particularly unflattering shade of blue, but it did the job. Fabric clinging to his chest and back, he scampered to the door.

Debby was checking her phone in the hallway with one hand, holding a coffee paper cup in the other, occasionally raising her eyes and looking around herself carefully, when Josh peered at her through the door’s peephole. She certainly looked like she would kill for a good night’s sleep, her usually pristine make-up hastily done and her brows furrowed.

Staring at her through the peephole was weird. He hurried up to unlock and she pushed her way inside past him without further ado. She studied his messy living room/kitchen/storage space like she was checking for murderers behind the curtain.

“‘Sup.” he said, unsure. Until a couple of weeks ago, they hadn’t even been talking anymore. Surprise visits like this one? Out of the question - he let her stay nonetheless.

Debby spun on her heels and hugged him out of the blue, burying her head in the crook of his shoulder. He froze. Okay. Surprise hugs had also been out of the question, until now, apparently. Near death brings people together in surprising, wonderful ways. Josh laid both of his palms on her shoulders and pushed her away gently, a lame move considering part of him was still hoping for them to make up. Or something.

“It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” he said, his reassurance falling flat on its face, much like the time he tried to do a kick-flip to impress Debby, and ended up breaking his nose in the process. Surprisingly, she stuck around.

Not this time. Growing colder, she removed his hands of her shoulders, without him protesting, and took a few steps back. “Answer your phone, Joshua. Damnit. And dry yourself after showering, I swear, you feel gross.” Same old Deb, who was over him, he reminded himself sternly.

“So, uh… How was class?” God, he sounded old. And awkward. Josh escaped into the kitchen side of the living room/kitchen/storage room combo, his stomach angrily reminding him that he hadn’t had much to eat for the past twenty four hours, safe for one of Tyler’s tacos, which made it all seem somewhat worse. And pitiful.

Debby followed him, sitting on one of the two stools set up at the counter that marked going from everything else into the kitchen. She was the reason he had two in the first place. “Awful. I need more coffee.” Josh nodded, slipping a small ‘On it, miss.’. While the coffee maker strummed and groaned, he poured himself chocolate cereal and milk into a bowl, ate still standing up, pacing back and forth.

When the coffee was done, he abandoned the bowl. Just like Debby used to like it when they were still dating, two packets of sugar and just a bit of milk…

_“Don’t.”_

Josh felt like a deer caught in the headlights. “Don’t what?”

“Black coffee, that’s what I need right now.” She sounded stern, almost pissed off. Making assumptions had recently begun to go to shit, then.

“But you always... “

Her cheeks turned pink. Not in a _‘You remembered, after all this time, how I like my coffee? That’s very sweet, I’m going to forgive you for what you did, and I’m going to be your girlfriend again, because deep down, I still love you.’_ way. In an angry way.

He handed her the coffee as it was, bitter and dark. The only sound in the apartment, for a long time, was the occasional knocking of his spoon against the sides of the bowl. Sometimes, he’d catch himself looking at Debby, before bringing his head down, pacing once again back and forth with the bowl of cereal in his hands. They were starting to get soggy, and he was starting to lose his appetite.

She paled, sipping her coffee and staring at her phone.

She was on her phone a lot, these days.

“Everything… ok?” he chirped in, hesitating at first, afraid she was still pissed at him, over coffee. Her gaze was detached when she looked up, drifting through him to someplace far away. He knew that look. “Tell me.”

Debby feigned ignorance. She could change her taste in coffee, but she couldn’t change the way she squinted her eyes and stared faraway whenever there was something she didn’t want to tell him. “What’re you talking about?”

“Don’t bullshit me, Deborah.”

“Don’t call me Deborah, _Joshua_.” Her eyes bore straight into his now, looking like they could burn him to a crisp with a single frown. When did they get like this? What a stupid question - he knew exactly when and why. Because of whom.

Well, the whom was certainly a bit more unclear, but there was a whom.

For now, he’ll leave it at because of himself.

“Look, it’s just the news exaggerating, like they do, and it won’t do you n-.”

“Tell me.” he repeated. A plea. His words were followed by a heavy silence, with Debby furrowing her brow and staring at her phone - she bit her lip, and finally gave in with a slow nod. She cleared her throat.

Terror isn’t, like some people would like you to believe, an ice cold feeling. It’s warm and disorienting, your brain turning into static, the world beyond your eyes grinding to a halt to watch you choke on your words. It’s payback and it’s something you’d never deserve, all in one. Like black coffee when you thought you’d added one milk, two sugars.

“The guy they found last night. He didn’t… have bright yellow hair. On himself. Sure, people who knew the guy said he dyed it yellow last month.” she said. Josh felt, once again, strangely self-conscious. “Now they’re saying… all of his hair was ripped off. Some strands were left behind, maybe by accident? But the whole thing. Gone.”

Josh closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. Terror came for a visit, but ended up crashing on the couch.

Debby rubbed his back while he threw up in the toilet.

 

Through soothing words that filled him with faint nostalgia, Debby convinced him to call in sick that day. His boss sounded unsympathetic when he told him he'd come down with a nasty cold, which he'd rather not share. He wasn't even lying on that one and, to his credit, he already sounded sick enough.

_“Unpaid, Dun, unpaid. Until when?”_

That wasn't going to help him with rent. The landlord was, as most other inhabitants of the building, old and keen on things happening just when intended. The first time she sat down with him, or, to be more specific, sat him down on an unpacked cardboard box while pacing unevenly and pointing at blank walls with her cane, she had laid out one important rule - no overdue rent.

_“I'll be okay tomorrow.”_

“You better be, Dun.”

You couldn't respect many rules when you were too scared to go to work. Maybe she'd understand if he told her. Josh practiced a grand speech in the living room part of his living room/kitchen/storage room combo. It tackled the depths of the human soul and the sense of justice all of us are born with, and are to uphold throughout our lives.

Eventually, he realized he didn't have the guts for this. It was a problem his future self would have to tackle, some other time.

Debby stayed with him for a bit. It was awkward. Then she left, and Josh thought it was equally awkward, watching her go, the final glance she cast him over his shoulder, letting him know he should’ve closed the door a long time ago, not watch her walk away. She didn't seem glad to be with him again - simply caring for him out of some sort of obligation, which Josh hated. He hated himself for making her worry.

He wasn't her burden to bear. Just a bit shaken. Tomorrow he'll be swell, go to work, remark on how messed up the situation is, and how they'll probably catch the bastard soon, give him what he deserves.

But pretending everything was okay was another problem for his future self. Right now, he was content (not really) with sitting in bed the entire day, picking out electric yellow hairs off his pillows and washing them all down the shower drain.

 

Sometimes, even when you don’t own a dog, you go to the dog park. Josh liked to think it was a good substitute for therapy.

The morning was crisp, carrying traces of last night’s rain, the same rain he’d listened to for sleepless hours on end. The world was fresh, new. Yesterday, and the day before, and every other day that had come and passed - all erased. What a sadly perfect world that would be.

It was too early. Not even the coffee shops were open, so Josh had to brew his own coffee at home and carry it in a thermos as he walked the mostly vacant streets. The only people you met this hour cast you doubtful glances, shuffling past quickly, like ghosts. Ghosts with a job to do, presumably. They’d glare at his thermos like he was holding a knife.

Calling the dog park a “park” would be giving it too much credit. It was tiny, divided into two sides, one for big dogs, and one for the small ones. Some old tires were half buried in the mud, for a reason Josh had yet to understand. You just learned to accept they were there. Three leafless trees flanked the park, arching bare branches towards the sky, before giving up. The trash cans were brimming with empty beer cans.

You didn’t have to own a dog to go to the dog park. Being drunk was okay, too.

He knew who he’d find here. The only people ever out so early _(Besides the old homeless lady that took to napping on the park’s benches ever so often, just like on that day, but disturbing her would be impolite. She’s dreaming)_ . Two terriers chased each other throughout one of the pens, yapping and whining. It was the sort of view that makes you wonder if dogs could really talk to each other, like in all the cartoons. Would be nice. He joined the sole spectator of the little display, clearing his throat to announce his presence.

Brendon gave him a tired smile, half-tilting his head so Josh could glimpse only a part of his face. It was something beyond the usual sleep-deprivation of any young adult that clung to his features. He looked like a child who’d been crying, but he made no comment about it. Sometimes, the greatest quality of a person could be just that. Shutting up for once in a while, and not asking the right question.

He’d picked that up from Brendon.

They didn’t talk about what had been on the news non-stop for the past few days, because serial killers didn’t exist in the dog park. Only two terries playing tug-of-war with a stick that’s too big for them.

Josh surveyed the park, every now and again, bloodstream spiked with paranoia. Counting the hours since the last murder like a frightened child counting sheep to fall asleep, he stood by Brendon, watched him smoke nonchalantly. Ever since the deaths had started, he had never seen his friend once look worried. He craved the same tranquility, but all he was left with were shudders and the sleepless nights.

It was strangely outrageous.

Screw them all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> long time no see, y'all, i forgot i can't actually write

**Author's Note:**

> all is well, for now


End file.
